"The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the darkest hours."

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The CT is over

Today we took baby girl in to do a CT scan for her eye. For a normal person it's not a big deal and really for her in the long run it isn't either. It takes 5 minutes to do and isn't painful or anything like that. However it does require you to lay completely still the entire time. Since baby girl is only 3 months and doesn't understand the concept of staying still it was required to give her a sedative through an IV.

Again, normally not a big deal but since she's so little her veins are very little too. It took 3 failed sticks before they finally got it on the 4th try. Poor girl has bruises on both hands and feet. Thankfully Mr. X was able to go after all so he held her most the time. She wasn't allowed to eat after 3am and considering it was 7:30am by the time they tried to do the IV I knew she was hungry and smelling me wouldn't help. So I stayed to the back and fought a losing battle with my own tears as I listened to her cries.

Thankfully they finally got the IV and at that point she pretty much just collapsed from exhaustion. I was able to hold her and I walked her back to the room where they do the scan. I held her until they gave her the sedative which worked really fast. Let me tell you, it's pretty creepy seeing them fall asleep with their eyes open. Once she was asleep we waited about 10 minutes and they took her to a recovery space so she could wake back up.

Thankfully she doesn't seem to be any worse off. After she was awake for about 15-20 minutes she was babbling and talking to us. We even got a couple smiles out of her. The nurse said she has the sweetest little voice which I agree of course. I was able to feed her again and we waited a bit longer just to make sure she wouldn't start vomiting. Then we were sent on our way with instruction on things to watch for. So far so good and although she has been sleeping a bit more than normal she really does seem fine.

Now I've been emailed and asked if I can explain better whats going on and why ultimately she is going to be having surgery. I actually managed to capture a great picture recently that really shows whats going on so I'll share that in a minute.

Baby girl has whats called a vascular malformity. It's basically a clump of blood vessels behind/around her eye that shouldn't be there. Over time it can/will grow and will cause issues with her vision and growth if it's not taken care of. When she was first born it looked like she just had bad bruising around her eyes and it still does. Well sorta like she has a black eye if that makes sense. Here's the photo so you can see.

When you look at the picture its the eye on the left. Don't mind the red marks, those are birth marks. The area in question is the dark purple like right over her upper eye lid. It almost kinda looks liek she has eye shadow on. Thats where all the blood vessels are clumped up. You can even tell where it's kinda puffy on that side compared to the other. When her eyes are open or in certain lights it can be hardly noticeable but it's definetely there.

The surgery itself will involve them cutting right along the crease of her eyelid so that after it heals it won't really be noticeable. They will be removing those clumps to make sure that nothing else about her eye is damaged from the growth. Then for the next few years we will have regular check ups with the specialist to make sure that it's not regrowing back or anything.

The CT scan done today is supposed to show exactly how bad it is. We can only see whats visible right by the eyelid, we have no idea how deep it may actually go. If it's deep or causing other issues then they will do surgery soon to try and prevent damaging anything else. If it's not that deep or interfering with anything else then we will wait as long as possible to do the surgery. We were told that after the scan today no news is good news if we don't hear from the doctors office prior to our August 9th appointment. if it's worse than he thought or considered urgent then we'll called in for an earlier appointment so we can get things going.

So there you have it. Maybe with the photo it will be easier to understand since now there is a visual. I know in the beginning it was confusing for us so I get why some people arent understanding what the issue is. Just keep fingers crossed that we will be able to put off the surgery a bit because the older she is the more surface area they have to work with as well as the better she will be able to handle the surgery.

My heart goes out to you and your family! I pray that they can put off surgery. My second child had to have a CT scan when he was about 5 months-so I definitly can feel your pain with watching them stick em and them going to sleep. I pray that everything checks out and it isn't bad and surgery can be avioded for as long as possible. I look forward to hearing updates from you!